Generative AI being used as surveillance devices, warns panel

At a Bloomberg conference in San Francisco featuring some of the biggest names in AI, a panel discussed AI ethics and the dangers of generative AI as a surveillance technology. The panel, consisting of Meredith Whittaker, the president of secure messaging app Signal, Credo AI co-founder and CEO Navrina Singh, and Alex Hanna, the Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute, expressed concerns about the intrusive nature of AI and the power hierarchy formed at the top of the generative AI pyramid. Whittaker explained that AI makes determinations that shape access to resources and opportunities behind the scenes in ways the majority of people are not aware of. Furthermore, AI requires surveillance through massive datasets that entrench and expand the need for more intimate collection, leading to a concentration of power in the hands of a few companies. The Venn diagram of AI concerns and privacy concerns is a circle, Whittaker explained, adding that the concern is existential and much bigger than the AI framing that is often given. If there isn’t enough pushback soon, society will be heading down a hype-filled road toward AI where power is entrenched and naturalized under the guise of intelligence, which can lead to us being surveilled to the point of having little agency over our individual and collective lives.